1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a powder supplier and a powder filling method where, inside a container in which a powder has accumulated, agitation of the powder is performed with the rotation of a rotating member such as an agitator and powder is conveyed to a powder supply port. The present invention also relates to an image forming device equipped with this powder supplier.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, image forming devices such as copiers and printers are widely used. These conventional devices are provided with: a photosensitive drum; a developing device that has a storage unit in which toner is stored and which sends out toner from a sending port provided in the front and supplies the toner to the photosensitive drum; a charging device; a transfer device that transfers toner to the paper; a cleaning device; and a fixing device that performs fixing to the paper.
The photosensitive drum, developing device, charging device, and cleaning device are unified and provided as a replaceable process cartridge.
An agitator is provided in the process cartridge. This agitator functions as an agitating-conveying means in which a toner agitating means and a toner conveying means are combined so that it agitates the toner in the storage unit and conveys the toner to a sending port.
Nonetheless, with this agitator, the shapes of the agitating wings of the sheet member are complicated, thereby making processing costs high. Further, conveyance in the radial direction of the agitator is limited by the circular shape of the bottom portion of the toner storage unit and to the region of the circular portion of the toner discharge port. Accordingly, it is necessary to make the toner container cylindrical and, when compared to a non-cylindrical toner container such as a substantially angular container, wasted space is created and it is thus difficult to make the device more compact.